How do you like Cocoa and Coffee?
8 September 2020: Webinar
Saving crops, protecting culture, sustaining livelihoods
This online event is part of the initiative “Mediterranean Diet’s Principles for Agenda 2030”, a series of thematic sessions promoted by the Italian Permanent Representation to the UN Agencies in Rome that aim to raise awareness on how the Mediterranean Diet can help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
DATE: 8 SEPTEMBER 2020
TIME: 15:00 – 16.30 CEST
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A rich cup of coffee and a flavorsome piece of chocolate are two of life’s little pleasures. What if someone told you that they could soon become a rarity? Cocoa and coffee are among the world’s most threatened crops. Global warming, deforestation, pests and diseases and loss of pollinators are compromising production, contributing to their decline. Without appropriate conservation mechanisms, monitoring and seed preservation measures, these crops could become a thing of the past in many regions of the world.
Beyond the environmental implications, drastic declines in cocoa and coffee production would mean losing the cultural heritage behind these two crops. Their cultural value goes well beyond their centers of origin, and extends to the entire world, including to the Mediterranean region. While being exotic crops to this area, cocoa and coffee are integral part of the culinary culture of the Mediterranean basin, where they are consumed and used daily in food manufacturing, confectionery and in our own kitchens. Without them, many of our traditional food and beverage recipes would be lost and with them the related traditions and cultural value.
There is a livelihoods side of the story: about 70% of the world’s coffee and 90% of global cocoa supply come from smallholder farmers across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Adding to the effects of climate change, pests and diseases, the recent COVID-19 crisis is putting further pressure on their livelihoods. Due to the prolonged global lockdown, the demand for cocoa and coffee has plunged, bringing down prices for the past three months. As a result, countries that rely on coffee or cocoa as major sectors of the economy could see a significant decrease in their GDP. With cocoa and coffee production concentrated in some of the poorest parts of the world, securing higher and more sustainable yields can be a lifeline out of poverty for farm households and rural communities.
The event aims to:
- Consider the contribution of cocoa and coffee production to the world’s economy and the implications of projected drastic declines in their availability over the next 30-40 years;
- Present tools, approaches and innovations to preserve and promote cocoa and coffee diversity to strengthen smallholders’ livelihoods and ensure functioning supply chains;
- Present best practices and approaches to better connect cocoa and coffee producers and consumers and improve market opportunities for smallholders.
Agenda:
Moderator: Romano De Vivo, Center for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability at the University of Zurich
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TIME
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SESSION |
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15:00-15.10
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Opening remarks
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15:10-15:20 |
Keynote speeches
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15:20-16:05 |
Interactive session Session 1: How do we ensure resilient livelihoods from cocoa and coffee?
Session 2: What best practices can we use to preserve cocoa and coffee for future generations?
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16:05-16:25 |
Q&A |
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16:25-16.30 |
Closing remarks H.E. Giorgio Marrapodi, Director General, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation |
Speaker Bios
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Romano De Vivo (moderator), Center for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (CCRS) at the University of Zurich Contact: [email protected]; [email protected] Romano is an associate researcher at the ESRAB. He has global experience in sustainability, public and government affairs and communication, a solid knowledge of international governance and law, and market dynamics. He is recognized for building strong network relationships and for his ability to provide communications and support in different cultural environments. It is an engaging communicator dedicated to building an ethical brand based on values, services and organizational excellence. |
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Vincenza Lomonaco, Permanent Representative of the Italian Republic to the UN Agencies in Rome – Bioversity International – IDLO Vincenza Lomonaco is Permanent Representative of the Italian Republic to the UN Agencies in Rome, Bioversity International and IDL, appointed on December 12th 2018. Prior to that she was Ambassador, Permanent Delegate of Italy to UNESCO from September 2013 to September 2018; Chair of the Culture Commission of the 39th UNESCO General Conference for 2017-2019 elected by UNESCO’s Member States in April 2017; Co-Chair of the Finance and Administration Commission (FA) of UNESCO Executive Board elected in April 2018; Chair of the 7th session of the General Assembly of State Parties to the UNESCO Convention for the protection of intangible cultural heritage, unanimously elected by UNESCO’s Member States in June 2018; and Director for the promotion of Italian culture and language at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as Deputy Director of the Internationalisation of the Country System from December 2010 to September 2013. |
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Juan Lucas Restrepo, Director General, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT A Colombian and French national, Juan Lucas has worked in the agricultural domain, both in public and private sectors, for the past 25 years. He has significant experience in policy, value chains, markets and in leading agricultural research. Among other positions, Juan Lucas has served as the Vice Minister of the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Chief Commercial Officer of the Colombian Federation of Coffee Growers, and for as the Executive Director of AGROSAVIA, the largest agricultural research organization of the country. He holds a degree in civil engineering from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, and a Master of Science in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University in the USA. |
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Giorgio Marrapodi, Director General for Development Cooperation Giorgio Marrapodi was appointed the Director General for Development Cooperation on 2 February 2018. A career diplomat with 32 years of experience, he was Italian Ambassador to Austria (2013-2017) and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Italian Embassy to Spain (2005–2009). Previously he served at the Permanent Mission of Italy to the European Union in Brussels (2001–2005) and to the United Nations in New York (1994-1998). At the Foreign Ministry in Rome he was Division Chief for Legal Affairs. He entered the diplomatic service in 1987, his first overseas assignment was in Bucharest, where he served at the Italian Embassy to Romania (1990-1994). He is a Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Knight Grand Cross of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. He received the highest decoration from the Republic of Austria and the Star of Diplomacy from Lithuania. |
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Pio Wennubst, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the UN Agencies in Rome Pio Wennubst is assistant director general (with the title of ambassador) and head of Global Cooperation at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Bern, will become the new permanent representative of Switzerland to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome. |
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Michele Nardella, Director of the Economics, Statistics and Sustainable Development Division, Secretariat of the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) Michele Nardella joined the ICCO Secretariat as an Econometrician in January 2006. Since October 2017, he has held the position of Director of the Economics, Statistics, and Sustainable Development Division (formerly Economics and Statistics Division). Prior to joining the ICCO, he was a Research Fellow at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy. Michele Nardella gained a PhD in Food, Agricultural and Resources Economics from the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) studying the issues surrounding the speed of price transmission across markets over time, form and space; and a Doctorate in Agricultural Economics and Policies from the University of Padova (Italy), assessing the impact of non-tariff measures on the world agri-food trade. |
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Christoph Sänger, Senior Economist, International Coffee Organization (ICO) Contact: [email protected] Christoph Sänger is Senior Economist at the International Coffee Organization (ICO) in London, conducting economic research on global coffee coffee value chains. Prior to joining the ICO he was economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has previously worked in the Division for International Cooperation at the German Federal Ministry of Agriculture in Berlin. He received his MS degree from University of California, Davis, USA and holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from Georg- August-Universität Göttingen, Germany. |
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Stephan Weise, Managing Director of Asia, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT Contact: [email protected] Stephan Weise is the Managing Director of Asia at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. Stephan has a been engaged in the field of cocoa since the late 1990s. He joined Bioversity International in 2009 as the Director of the Commodities for Livelihoods Programme, based in the Montpellier Office in France. He was appointed Deputy Director General Research from 2011 to 2019. Before joining Bioversity International, Steph an worked for 16 years with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) on a variety of programmes related to tree crops, the environment, and farm diversification in the forest margins of West and Central Africa. He obtained his PhD from the ETH Zurich in 1989. |
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Sandra Corsi, Conservation Agriculture and Climate-Smart Crop Production Intensification Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Contact: [email protected] Sandra is an agronomist with more than ten years’ experience in sustainable crop production intensification. She coordinates FAO projects that deliver on sustainable production intensification, climate change adaptation, and climate change mitigation. |
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Monika Schneider, Group leader Agroforestry, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) Contact: [email protected] Monika Schneider has long standing experiences in development cooperation in Bolivia, Madagascar and Central America. Training and extension in sustainable agriculture, organic coffee, landscape management, agroforestry, institution building using participatory approaches. Since 2003 she is at FiBL as senior scientist. She set up certification bodies for sustainability standards and research is oriented to improve cocoa agroforestry systems. |
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Jaime Freire, Medium Coffee Producer, Guatemala Jaime Freire is a coffee producer in Guatemala. He has collaborated for several years as director in trade associations such as Asociacion Experimental Cafetalera, Anacafe, as well as director in the social division of Funcafe, focusing on education and health. He has also collaborated with the Association of Voluntary Natural Reserves and with the Association of Renewable Energy Generators. |
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Petra Heid, Head of Sustainability, Chocolats Halba Switzerland Contact: [email protected] Global experiences in “sustainability of soft-commodities and their entire value chain”, worked in different positions in cocoa producing and European countries, involved in the development of dynamic agroforestry systems with smallholder cocoa producers and their organizations, access to markets, and product quality, currently handles all sustainability issues along the supply chain and actively participates in several sustainability committees, co-heading the working group climate resilience & biodiversity of the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa. |
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Brigitte Laliberté, Cocoa of Excellence programme coordinator, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT Contact: [email protected] Brigitte is a Scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. Since 2010 she focuses her work in the area of cacao genetic diversity, its conservation and use in development of improved planting materials of quality and well adapted to changing climate, tolerant to pest and diseased, low uptake of soil contaminants and other priority traits of cocoa producers. She coordinates the Cocoa of Excellence Programme (CoEx) and International Cocoa Awards (ICA) and the Global Network for Cacao Genetic Resources (CacaoNet). She also coordinates the development of the International Standards for the Assessment of Cocoa Quality and Flavour. |
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Riccardo Mazzucchelli, Public Information Specialist, IPPC Secretariat, FAO
Riccardo Mazzucchelli works as Public Information Specialist in the IPPC Secretariat, hosted in FAO, and has been supporting the International Year of Plant Health 2020, amongst other activities. Riccardo came back last year from a two-year experience in Latin America, where he coordinated a project aiming to greater harmonisation of exports amongst Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. He focused on the cocoa value chain in Ecuador and coffee exports in Colombia. Previously, Riccardo has collaborated with several universities to involve IR students in the activities of international organizations such as FAO, and one of his initiatives that took place precisely in FAO received the Medal of the President of the Republic of Italy in 2015. |
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Mario Cerutti, Chief Institutional Relations & Sustainability Officer at Lavazza and president of the European Coffee Federation Contact: [email protected] Mario Cerutti is Chief Institutional Relations & Sustainability Officer at Lavazza and president of the European Coffee Federation. He has been working in Lavazza since 1986, currently he is Chief Institutional Relations and Sustainability Officer in Lavazza. From 2004 to 2007 he was the President of the European Coffee Federation (ECF). He is currently serving as President of the European Federation of Associations of Coffee Roasters, representing the European green coffee trade, coffee roasting industry, soluble coffee manufacturers and decaffeinators. |
